On several occasions we spoke about the Expendables of Horror: Death House and it’s imminent release into the world (mark 19. January 2018 on your calendar)- but now we have a word on some more interesting news.

Death House‘s director B. Harrison Smith has officially started working on the prequel to flash out more of the backstory for the standout characters called 5 Evils.The 12 page treatment for the script is outlined, yet we still don’t know if Dawn of 5 Evils will follow Death House or will the proposed sequel The Farm come first. And just in case you haven’s seen Death House prepremiere at Scare-A-Con New England and you are not familiar with the Evils, you’ll find some familiar faces and old favorites among them, actors like Bill Moseley, Michael Berryman, Vernon Wells, Vincent Ward and Lindsay Hartley.

To conclude our pretty sweet Post- Apocalyptic month we have a special treat for you. Preview for After The Harvest, a new gem of B movie film-making that we can all look forward to. And it features some legends of the Action and SF cinema like the Renegade himself Lorenzo Lamas, Martina Sirtis (Star Trek) and the main man Vernon Wells (Mad Max 2: Road Warrior, Commando)!

You all know what this means- we’re gonna see Wells ride the motorcycle again!

Like this:

Yet another low budget sci-fi from the ’90s…How many of them actually exist? This time it isn’t Albert Pyun. It isn’t even Phillip J. Roth. This time the culprit is Stuart Gordon and like his other movies, this one is also cheesy with narrow demographic appeal. But that’s my point of view which I am gonna elaborate you now. Here goes nothing.

In the beginning of this movie we see 2 men. One of them is a scientist named Nabel (Charles Dance). The other one is boss of “EJ Saggs” (Shane Rimmer). Nabel represents his product… The ultimate space soldier, robot who is equipped with “State-of-the-art-Disintegrators” and shoots lasers from it’s head. Actually it looks like APEX (for more info see under A.P.E.X). After demonstrating it’s destructive power, the boss burns Nabel alive (talk about getting paid for job well done). And that’s the end of prelude.

Now, let’s see good guys side. The year is 2196. World and space are much more different than any of us could have imagined. It looks like floating wild west. John Canyon (played by Denis Hopper, who is best known for his role of crazy Photographer in “Apocalypse Now” ) is one of the last independent cargo transporters. By independent I mean he doesn’t work for “The Company”. Very original name for intergalactic agency. He is old and weathered, but he still gets the job done… Eventually…With “minor” schedule missing. Like we see him on the beginning of the movie, getting yelled at because he took too much time to transport square pigs. Yeah, square pigs. For Inter Pork agency. Honest word. And the anti-gravity beer. It’s beer that floats. Still, he got paid. But, the business is falling apart. He is in no position to ask the questions about the origin of cargo he transports. Nor what’s exactly inside. He doesn’t need to know every time. That’s what will get him into the trouble.

Square pigs – Fit nicely into the cages, so they don’t waste any space

John finds himself in one of the space bars, talking to young waitress. There is obvious chemistry between them, despite the age gap. Waitress Cindy (played by Debi Mazar) tells him a story about her sick mother on Earth. During that conversation John was approached by some man. The man offers him a job…Transport of top-secret cargo to Earth. No questions asked, and no answer given. Not a big problem for John, anyway. Cindy overheard conversation between them and then started to beg John to take her to Earth so she can see her sick mother. Eventually, he cracks and Cindy joins him and his partner Mike (played by Stephen Dorff). Mike, who is much younger than John, seemed too much excited about new crew member. I guess he haven’t had many such attractive passengers during their smuggling. Anyway, a moment before their departing, space bar brawl started. During that complete chaos, one of the hatches on the wall got opened and started sucking everything. Even Keller (George Wendt) who is the chief of that bar. And he is very, very, very HUGE man. His ass has shut the hole. Everything seems to be ok now. Or is it? It turned out that even Keller’s gigantic, fat ass couldn’t shut the hole, so he ended sucked up into wide space. One really ugly woman screamed and one cyborg-grandma fell off toilet seat, but other than that no one else showed any reaction to chief’s demise. Probably because his prices were too high.

Fat man and the small hole

Back to our heroes. It turned out that top-secret mission is transporting inflatable life-size sex dolls. That’s surely the task of the greatest priority for human kind. But still, their trip is not without dangers. First, they had been attacked by The Agency troopers (seems to me that aren’t many decent looking women left in future, since entire space wants sex dolls).They survived the attack but not without a scratch. Sector in which cargo is transported has been damaged. Also, cooling system went down. And they are near the Sun. So, John takes the role of the hero, puts space suit on, and hovers outside to repair the damage. Meanwhile, inside the ship, Mike and Cindy are sharing other interests. With the remark that’s too hot inside the ship (the oldest trick in a book), Mike manages to convince Cindy to take off her clothes. Seems suitable since he was already almost completely naked. Seconds after, they begin a foreplay in zero gravity. While Mike is trying to get his spear polished, John stumbles upon self-defensive system on cargo hold. Seems a bit strange to put such technology just to protect a bunch of sex dolls for weirdos, don’t you think? Same thoughts John has, but he doesn’t have a time for further thinking. His ship gets attacked again, this time by space pirates. As fast as he could, John went back into the ship just in time to find his partner and his passenger on pile. He tries to hide that it was shock to him but without much success. Anyway, no time for that now. He has to think how to get out of this trouble with pirates.

In space even sex is different

Space pirates aren’t aggressive from a start. Their gigantic space ship sucked up John’s ship like piece of cake. They first try to interrogate them. The man who is in charge for interrogation and sadistic, twisted torturing is no one else than Mister Cutt (played by Vernon Wells). He’ll try to find out what exactly John got in his cargo. Of course, he still doesn’t know what is inside and still claims that those are inflatable sex dolls for weirdos. Mister Cutt doesn’t believe a word what John says so he ties up all three of them. Yeah, even our lovers, without giving them a chance to put some clothes on. As it always happens, the first threat would be raping of young Cindy (how convenient) if they don’t hear confession. Still, John can’t tell something he doesn’t know about, so in the eyes of Mister Cutt he remains stubborn and not very talkative. Led by this, he decides to call a captain of space pirates ship. Now, remember Nabel from the beginning of the movie? The one who made robots? He died, right? WRONG!!! He is actually the captain of space pirates, but his name isn’t Nabel anymore…Now he calls himself Macanudo. But how is he still alive when we saw him getting burned to death, you may ask? Easy. He installed into himself new parts, such as plastic ass, mechanical eye, pig leg (not of square pig), mechanical brain (sounds like the title of some bad horror/sf movie) and many minor miscellaneuos.And with his outfit he looks like space Hitler! It turned out, that he actually made 5000 of APEX (see under A.P.E.X) and now he wants them back for his own ends. After losing several of his pirates to defensive system on cargo hold, he demands that John disables turrets. Since John doesn’t have the slightest idea about it, space Hitler decides to fulfill Mister Cutt’s threat, and that’s how young Cindy ends up in his quarters. Now, leg, brain, ass and other things aren’t the only things that were burned. His dick also got same fate as other body parts. Might be a problem to have a sex with no dick? For regular mortals perhaps, but not for our Macanudo!!! He got himself a mechanical dick!!! While Cindy is lying almost naked on the bed he tries to start up his penis. The procedure is same as when starting chainsaw. No, i am not making this up!!! Unfortunately for him, he failed to this (I guess he didn’t have enough juice) so Cindy took an opportunity, pushed him on bed and teared his parts who are transporting some sort of fluid through his body, takes his clothes and tries to set free John and Mike by imitating Macanudo’s voice. But space Hitler puts himself together (literally) much faster than she had expected. He stormed in main chamber with words “If I had an ass, I would soil myself”. Truly, the words of pure wisdom. Just before pirates killed them all, somehow robots broke loose, and complete chaos is about to begin. As cream of crap, resistance enters space pirates ship and start shooting on everyone around. Their goal is to stop transport of killer robots to Earth. Normally, APEXes (see under A.P.E.X) literally destroy everything in their way, including Nabel/Macanudo/Space Hitler. John, Cindy, and Mike used that confusion to get free and start running back to their ship. But one person that lies on the ground stops them. Who could it be? That figure wears nazzi uniform. But the space Hitler is dead, right? WRONG AGAIN!!! He gives them something. It’s a mouse. But no real mouse…It’s mouse for PC!!!And only that can stop killer robots who not only that shoot lasers out of their heads, they now use a martial arts!!! John uses PC mouse to make a clear path, and reaches his ship just a couple of moments before everything explodes!!! Now they are on their way to Earth and space Hitler is now definitely dead…Unless he got himself completely new body stashed somewhere, with soul transporter built in.

Space Hitler interrogating, like in good old times

A few of remaining APEXes hang themselves on rear side of space truck, but John solved that problem by simply going through ozone layer and burning them to point of melting. Once they landed, they have been welcomed by no one else than president of world himself, surrounded by his top agents. Funny fact is that each agent looks like Elvis Presley (so, he is alive after all!!!). Then they all went together to the hospital to visit Cindy’s mother, who turned out to be love of the John’s life but she never got old because she slept too much due to her illness (?!). And that Cindy, who used to be his fiance, is probably his daughter (???!!!) Then, in same hospital room president, who turned out to be planning to destroy the Earth for reasons only known to him, offered them the suitcase full of money in exchange for their silence since this is election year. Some things never change… Couple of minutes later, faced with moral dilemma, John throws the suitcase out the window, which falls directly on presidents limousine while he was laughing sinister inside of it. Suitcase exploded, blowing up limo, president and bunch of Elvis Presleys to pieces.

Conclusion: This movie obviously had no budget. It can be viewed as an awful sci-fi or misunderstood parody of sci-fi. But for those who would want to know more about this movie without risking their sanity by watching it, I have to say only one thing: This is how Bud Spencer and Terrence Hill movies would look like if they were directed by Phillip J. Roth.

Like this:

This monstrosity of a film starts with always lovely Tracy Lords aka as Dr. Norma( ironically her birth name) getting into the brain of notorious cyber criminal master-mind Priest of Pain aka Prince of Plugs aka Plughead. He cuts a deal with her which involves allowing her to have a baby (she is obviasly incapable of bearing a child). Then the scene is cut and we’re in the prison colony where guard lady is savagely raping prisoners one at a time!? Two strange prisoners: long haired freak and bold and retarded Shakespearean actor in love with the rock (we didn’t make this up). succeed to escape, it good portion thanks to the said rock that left one of the guards Unconscious. Other one was too busy with forced sex to could catch them in time.

In the meantime tough female cop Kyle (ex-Miss America Deborah Shelton) is interrogating romantic pleasure android aka bio-syntetic Danner Romeo in the insane asylum. He is reluctant but eventually breaks under the pressure and accepts to help her. Plughead made an underground empire for himself by selling illegal age chips (that can obviasly prolong life) to rich and influential men.Why would essentially the same people that are in power decide that Plughead needs to be stopped- well, we’ll find out… Two of them find some crazy person enjoying the virtual party and he helps them to reach the Brazil America (?!) by means of Zen teleportation (?!!).

Meanwhile Plughead is bonding with Norma, and trying to teach her the joys of killing people by absorbing their life energy, and of course storing them into chips afterwords.

…

Cop and gigolo android successfully reach the desert of Brazil-merica but are unfortunately unprepared for unbreathable conditions there. It seems that their mission will be prematurely finished but with a help of desert mouse they found some turnip which somehow kept them breathing until they confronted some desert terrorist and stole their oxygen- (android was of course trying to make peace but hot-tempered girl shot them fast enough and saved their lives). After that they end up trapped by a crazy soldier, then band of Arabs with female leader shows up and they despite all common sense survive it all. Also tough cop is losing her clothes as the movie progresses and… yes, she’s naked now- and on top of the android that she “hated” just moments ago. Truth be told, she did give him the option of plugging in directly into her brain but he decided to plug in the old fashion way. This robot is not as idiotic as he appears to be.

“I’m just a gigolo and everywhere I go, People know the part I’m playin’…”

Bunch of criminals including two escaped prisoners from the beginning of the movie are reaching Plughead headquarters- to seek job as hired goons perhaps? After they plugged out Kyle and Romeo hurry up towards the “secret” headquarters- Romeo even connects with a horse’s brain (even though he refused to do the same with humans) and overclocks the horse who starts galloping like a mad cow or something.

They finally find and confront Plughead but it turns out that it was a set up, Kyle was working for Plughead all along and he needed Romeo to extract the DNA Sequence that he hid in him long time ago. That particular sequence will somehow allow him to control everyone with chips and the whole wide world with it. We find out that the reason for Kyle’s betrayal was her mother, and her mother was here all along (a half her age) Tracy Lords! They try to explain that she is bio-syntetic that was “born” full grown but somehow that doesn’t make the plot any less idiotic.

INTENSE MAN, INTENSE!

Anyway Traci tries to kill Plughead, fails and runs away, convicts start making a mess and almost get killed and in the end Romeo and Plughead have one final battle on the very edge of a final frontier- THEIR MINDS! Plughead seems all powerful but when confronted with corny romantic images of Romeo and Kyle he loses his mind and explodes thus effectively ending all hopes of world domination.Movie ends with a convict/Shakespearean actor reciting marriage vows to happy couples, long- haired convicts and Norma, Romeo and Kyle and himself and… the rock? Damn!

Idiotic cops, two character that serve absolutely no purpose in this movie!

Verdict: This movie is labeled as a post- apocalyptic flick but it can be better described as a post- film, as it (unplanned by it’s makers) deconstructs all the known laws of film-making and distillates all the bizarre genre elements you can think of into an hour an half of pure unexplainable madness.

On the other side no one plays the parts of deranged homicidal maniacs quite like Vernon Wells, and his Plughead has all it takes to be out there with the big guys like Freddy, Jason and Meyers, unfortunately to achieve that he would need a hell of a lot better film than this one!